Once again I find myself broken. Each word feels like a jagged piece of glass pressed against my throat. Each thought seems disconcerting and distracted, dipped in the tar of dismay. November arrives with her misty coat. The winter chills adorn the city and love can be sometimes found in a cup of tea. I don't know whether the answers are. Truly. I began reading Kafka's diaries written exactly a century ago and I can at times feel the same, before I sleep.

Heard Kerouac's words with jazz on Sunday, after a couple of rounds of rum and smoke. People seem to dissipate around me. I felt I could look through walls but not their heads. It's strange. Everything. How songs give meaning. How conversations bundled with contradictions give colour to the clouds. There is no meaning, I overheard her say. Her finger locks easily on the handle of the mug.

Who are you, the raven says. I am no one, but a voice in your head. There are dreams which are like watercolours, when your mind is blank as a canvas. But oft I find myself so wrapped in the misery of aspirations. The cage is only a metaphor.

Your writing has no meaning, they say. I know, I know. These are just fragmented thoughts written between 8.30 and 8.45pm, in the middle of work. Just plain writing because it's so simple. Like looking at the sky, as though to check if it's still there. Alas, here I go again.

It's 3.30am and I thought I might as well give my two bits before I lose myself to the realm of dreamw and lose you forever. It is often so easy to say the simplest things to you in my garbled ways -- and know that you would only say the same. And never change, like a photograph.

So I thought I should say I'm well. Not doing too bad, but only robbed of being very clever. But as long as you know I'm trying. Trying to let you know that I'm there, in my own ways, and not saying goodbye, not in that farwell way. The only way I know they always say and never pick up another thought.

Why is it so sweet? Your thoughts confused with mine, and yet I don't even know you as well as some of your favourites. It's like everything is illuminated for this one mone. Just you and me. And we can never be together, but can we?

Someone's broken the spell tonight. The fire within you has died, left you nothing but mere thoughts of ash to hide. Old memories come to haunt you of a time when you longed for someone, for sense, when it was like some battle and you could've won. And now, they stand besides you, with their arms crossed, like some angry witch at a half-eaten moon, just like when we part at times on promises to meet soon. What is love, you say, to a withered rose? Where is beauty, you say, when the sun has been swallowed? Tonight could've been different, Neruda would've said, but if only he knew...